The Top 10 Mistakes When Developing Mobile Apps for Seniors
My tips for app creators
There are many good reasons why you would want to develop mobile apps for seniors. Society is getting older and people are living longer and want to be active in life longer. Moreover, there are more seniors owning a smartphone or a tablet every day.
However, most apps are developed for target groups that are much younger than seniors. This often makes it more difficult than necessary for them to use these mobile apps. There is hardly a target group for developing mobile apps that is more demanding than senior citizens. This is because time takes its toll as we get older. The aging process impacts how people use mobile apps, especially when it comes to vision, dexterity, memory, and information processing.
Below you can learn more about my top 10 mistakes you can make when developing mobile apps for senior citizens.
1. Icon Buttons Without Explanation
In many mobile apps you can find buttons that consist of only one icon, for example a camera, a magnifying glass or even a hamburger. App creators often make the assumption that every app user is familiar with this symbol language. This can be a problem for older users who are not very experienced in using a mobile device or just have a different cultural background. This may mean that the individual icon does not provide enough context to be clearly understood.
In these cases it is necessary to add an explanatory text to the icon to show in more detail what function is hidden behind it. When presenting buttons with text, it helps users to find the right information or action faster. They also improve accessibility for anyone using a screen-reader or voice assistant. Make sure that there are no or hardly any buttons that consist only of an icon or an image. Instead, all buttons should contain descriptive text.
2. Unclear Call To Action
If the call to action is not 100% clear, our target audience will not know what to do. It starts with small ambiguities, like having the possibility to click on two different buttons.
If this is the case, it must be clear what happens when you click one button or the other. Ideally, there should only be one button to click next or one input field to use.
3. Too Many Elements at A Glance
Visual overload is the keyword here. If it is unclear to users, especially seniors, which element is in focus and where they can get the crucial information, they quickly become impatient.
Therefore, it should generally be avoided to create too complex layouts with a lot of content. It is also important to prioritize the information presented.
4. Patronizing Language
Complex information
Complex information should be presented in a way that makes it easy to understand. In no case should a user be patronized with the chosen language in which the text is written. The rule of thumb is to write text that an eighth grader can read. It is helpful to avoid long passages of text, write short sentences, and use simple language.
Technical Terms
If it is not possible to avoid using technical terms in your mobile app, they must be explained clearly and simply in one place. Otherwise, technical terms can lead to misunderstandings and operating errors. In addition, you never want to convey the feeling that a user is not educated enough to use an app. Error messages should also not be worded in a technical way, but in a simple and helpful way so that older users know what happened and what they can do to fix or work around the error.
Anglicism
Anglicisms are always a problem when developing an app for the non-English speaking world. For a mobile app for older people, however, you should definitely avoid them because you can’t assume that everyone knows English. In our older target group, the case is more likely that there was little or no English in school and the language is also used rather rarely in daily life.
5. No Possibility to Correct Input
Mistakes happen. That is the nature of things. And each of us is frustrated when a mistake cannot be corrected directly. But the frustration threshold among our target group is much lower. Many older people don’t want to waste their time with things they don’t understand or that are cumbersome to use.
Be forgiving of typos and make sure that the user can navigate back in the app in as many places as possible, correct an incorrect entry, and in particularly important cases double check beforehand that the entry is exactly as intended.
6. Age-Related Limitations Not Taken Into Account
From the perspective of regular app developers, it is often difficult to comprehend that with age comes very natural physical limitations, making it difficult to interact with a mobile app. It’s a fact that with age, eyesight and fine motor skills tend to decline. These physical limitations are often not considered when developing mobile apps for seniors.
Font Size Too Small
Many older users need glasses and have great difficulty if the font is too small or the font is hard to read. Small text is especially problematic for seniors viewing content on mobile devices. Make sure that you use at least a font size of 16 points. Additionally, it makes sense to provide an optional magnification feature.
Contrast Too Low
The contrast between foreground and background, especially when text is involved, plays a crucial role in app design. The smaller the contrast value, the worse older users can recognize the font. It’s harder to read something on a screen than on paper. This is especially true for seniors, who often have weaker vision than younger users. High-contrast text helps seniors to read information more comfortable.
Size of Elements and Distances Between Elements Too Small
The size also plays a role not only for the font, but also for buttons. If the button is not big enough, it is harder to hit. Actions take longer because the button may have to be pressed several times until something happens. In the worst case, the wrong button is clicked that was placed close to the right button.
7. Loading Time Is Too Long
Patience is a virtue, but the older you get, the less patience you have to deal with things that take too much time. You quickly have the feeling that you are wasting your time and would rather delete the mobile app again.
Therefore, as an app developer, it is especially important to make sure that the app works as smoothly as possible and that there are no unnecessary waiting times. If this cannot be avoided, the status of the action must be visible at all times.
8. App Consumes Too Much Data Volume
The amount of data requested or sent by an app can become quite a treacherous problem. This is because older users often do not attach much importance to how fast their Internet connection is at home. Sometimes they also only use mobile Internet and may be tied to a rather cheap contract that does not include much data volume.
This can lead to frustration because the app seems to be very slow, even if it is not the app itself, but the data volume used or the poor Internet connection at home. However, the app users only see what the app does. This is an external factor that is difficult to influence as an app developer, but it is very real and happens frequently.
In these cases, there is only one thing you can do as an app developer: Try to request or use as little data as possible. For example, images that are loaded from the Internet should be optimized in size as much as possible.
9. Too New Hardware-Dependent Features
There are technical updates for mobile devices at regular intervals. They can store more, function faster and, thanks to constantly improving sensors, can perform tasks that used to require many devices. The temptation to use the latest gadget in your own app is naturally great.
It should be kept in mind that many older users do not own the latest smartphone or tablet and therefore often do not have access to the latest technical functions. Sometimes their device is already very slow. There are also always seniors who are less open to technical innovations and need a certain amount of time to build up trust.
It is therefore advisable — even if it is tempting — not to always use the latest technical hardware updates for an app that is intended for older users.
10. Bots as Customer Support
Seniors often prefer to pick up the phone than to search in any help section for the right answer to a particular problem or interact with a bot. The senior audience prefers to talk or write to a real human being. So it’s very important to present the right contact information as visibly as possible.
You should also always have a real person in Customer Support who can respond to the individual needs of older users.
